Caste

by

Isabel Wilkerson

Caste: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta traveled to India in the winter of 1959. King had long dreamed of making a kind of pilgrimage to India, the place whose struggle against freedom from British colonial rule had inspired his own fight in the U.S. King had read of the caste system in India, and he wanted to meet members of its lowest caste—the Dalit, or Untouchables. But when the principal of a school King was visiting introduced him as an American “untouchable,” King was taken aback. It took him a moment to realize that he was an Untouchable, and that every Black person in America was an Untouchable, as well. In that moment, King realized that America had a caste system of its own.
This passage shows how even one of the most renowned civil rights activists in American history did not fully understand how completely caste ruled American life until he was confronted with another country’s caste system. This illustrates how insidious caste in the U.S. truly is—and how Black Americans have historically been forced to exist outside of society, just like the Indian Dalits.
Themes
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Caste as a Global Problem  Theme Icon
The seeds of the American caste system were planted over 150 years before the American Revolution. The white men who wanted to overtake and “civilize” the new world they’d discovered knew they needed to conquer, enslave, or otherwise remove the people already living on it—and find “lesser beings” to do that work for them. Through a warped interpretation of the Bible, these men created a “ladder of humanity” that placed European people (particularly English Protestants) at the top, and African captives transported to build this new world at the bottom.
The language Wilkerson uses in this passage illustrates the desire for dominance that the American settlers possessed. They wanted to tame, rule, and enforce a hierarchy that would place themselves at the top. Caste, the book will show, uses irrational concepts to rationalize one group’s absolute power.
Themes
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How Caste Sustains Itself Theme Icon
The invisible caste system these men created has lasted so long precisely because it is so difficult to see. While few people apply the term caste to American life today, many throughout history—including antebellum abolitionists—have named caste as a very real threat to the fabric of the United States. Attempting to uphold the hierarchical pyramid of the American caste system has been at the root of the American Civil War, the 1960s civil rights movement, and even the U.S.’s contemporary political configuration. While race is a social invention, humans have nonetheless found themselves trapped in its “mythology.”
This passage illustrates how the system that 17th-century colonists created to establish power in a land that was not theirs has become a value system that modern-day Americans are still forced to buy into. This centuries-old hierarchy continues to define the fabric of life in the U.S. today.
Themes
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How Caste Sustains Itself Theme Icon
The Costs of Caste Theme Icon
White supremacists and eugenicists in the 20th-century U.S. proudly compared the Jim Crow laws of the Southern states, which dictated what Black people could do and where they could exist in public, to the efforts of the Indian caste system to “preserve the purity of [the upper caste’s] blood.” Under the American caste system, even the lowliest of white people who worked menial jobs and suffered in poverty could feel they were better than the most successful Black person.
The caste system created many laws and regulations—some official, some unspoken. Each of these strictures—particularly Jim Crow laws—consolidated upper castes’ power, reassuring dominant-caste people of their supremacy no matter how society changed around them. U.S. society has grown and changed—but caste has remained the same, and it keeps everyone in the past. 
Themes
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How Caste Sustains Itself Theme Icon
Get the entire Caste LitChart as a printable PDF.
Caste PDF
In 1913, a man named Bhimrao Ambedkar—born into the Untouchable class in India—arrived in New York City to study economics at Columbia University. He went on to study in London before returning to India, where he became the leader of the Untouchables and gave his caste the name Dalit, meaning “broken people,” to illustrate how the caste system ruined countless lives. Indians had long been aware of the plight of Black people in the United States—and it is clear that Ambedkar’s education in the U.S. taught him the importance of understanding the relationship between Dalits and Black Americans.
This passage continues to show how people around the world can learn about the their own caste system by observing another caste system. Just as King didn’t fully understand caste in the U.S. until visiting India, Ambedkar drew strength from seeing that he and his people were not alone in their suffering. Later on in the book, Wilkerson will discuss the importance of people around the globe awakening to the damaging effects of caste in order to dismantle caste systems. This passage lays the groundwork for the idea of caste as a global issue that must be resolved collectively.  
Themes
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Caste as a Global Problem  Theme Icon
Wilkerson began researching this book in hopes of understanding how caste began in the U.S.—and why it’s persisted in U.S. society for so long. The specter of caste haunted Black people who fled from the American South just as it haunts Indians throughout their own global diaspora. And as a member of the United States’ subordinate caste, Wilkerson wanted to identify the shared characteristics of the caste systems of India, the U.S., and Nazi Germany. Only by understanding all three side-by-side, Wilkerson believes, can one fully understand the roots of hierarchy and inequality around the globe.
This passage consolidates one of Wilkerson’s major arguments, and one of the book’s core concerns: caste is not an isolated problem, but rather a global issue. Countries can learn from the rise and fall of other caste systems, as well as from caste system that still exist—but the issues of caste will not be solved without a widespread understanding of how these systems function and sustain themselves.
Themes
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Caste as a Global Problem  Theme Icon
How Caste Sustains Itself Theme Icon
Throughout the book, Wilkerson uses the terms “dominant,” “favored,” and “upper caste” instead of “white” and “lowest,” “disfavored,” or “stigmatized caste” instead of “Black.” She does so in hopes that her readers will reimagine how they see themselves and others. She also announces her intent to use “original, conquered, or indigenous peoples” instead of “Native American” and “marginalized people” instead of the terms “women” or “minorities.” 
By using terms that may seem stilted or foreign to talk about race and caste, Wilkerson hopes to draw attention to the profoundly strange, unsettling nature of the U.S.’s caste system. To truly understand the caste system, she’s suggesting, Americans must see how it looks from an outsider’s perspective. 
Themes
Wilkerson stresses the importance of understanding the American caste system in relation to the caste systems of other countries by relaying an anecdote about traveling to a group of Indian scholars’ conference on race and caste in Massachusetts. After speaking about the similarities between the American caste system and the Indian caste system, the organizers of the conference presented Wilkerson with a bronze bust of Bhimrao Ambedkar. Countless presenters and attendees talked with Wilkerson about their experiences of caste. On the way home, a Black TSA worker flagged her bag for inspection and pulled out the small bronze statuette, asking who the statue depicted. “The Martin Luther King of India,” replied Wilkerson. After scanning the statuette, the TSA agent carefully, almost reverently, wrapped the bust back up and placed it gently into Wilkerson’s suitcase. 
The anecdote Wilkerson shares here shows that even without understanding the intricacies of another country’s history, one can still understand what a global end to injustice might look like. The TSA agent’s reverence for the work of a man he’d never heard of—but was able to compare to the worthy mission of someone from his own country—shows that many people are willing and eager to learn about the struggles of people from other caste systems.  
Themes
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Caste as a Global Problem  Theme Icon